Monday, December 22, 2008

Great post today from Laura Quinn, Executive Director of Idealware. Idealware provides solid and objective advice about software for nonprofits and educates charities on the pros and cons of different vendors/packages.

In this post (which you should read in its entirety) she's railing against an all too common nonprofit request.

"We can't afford software for our nonprofit. What can we get for FREE?"

I agree with Laura. This is a REALLY ANNOYING REQUEST.

No one is suggesting that you break the proverbial bank with your next technology purchase. However, if you want to reap the benefits of technology, i.e. enjoy the ability to share information among stakeholders, integrate data among platforms, get better reports and analytics, etc.) you have to make some investment in technology. More important, you have to invest in training for your employees so that they can USE the new tools.

Don't scrimp when using technology. Determine your goal, do you homework and invest the cash and human capital to achieve success. Beware of FREE.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

I had lunch with Chris Wolz a few weeks back. He's the chief tomato at Forum One - a well-respected consulting firm in DC. I've only chatted with him twice but I like his brain and this recent meeting didn't disappoint. He asked me a great question that I'm still mulling over.

I was chatting him up about my newest venture - www.emailforimpact.com - and telling him how exciting it is to build a brand from the ground up and he said,

"What is a successful brand? How will you know when you've arrived?

"Good questions," I replied. (Not feeling so brilliant after all.)

I have to fess up, I used to think branding was CRAP. To me it meant paying consultants 100s of 1000s of dollars to come up with a black and white and 4-color logo and a tag line like - "creating solutions for success" (What does that mean???!!!!) But thanks to the good thinking of Larry Checco and QuiDiaz, I'm now convinced that branding is the life blood of any organization and comprises much more than adding "sparkle" to your blog. (Thank you Taughnee!)

Branding is what you do and don't stand for. It's is about how you act in public and behind closed conference room doors. It's what you say to a donor when you F##$$% UP and how your turn a volunteer away. In short, it's your organizational identity.

If I'm right on this count, then it stands to reason that a good brand (you do want a good brand, don't you?) embodies good values like honesty, integrity, accessibility, fairness, authenticity, etc. Take your pick.

In his great book, Word of Mouth Marketing, Andy Sernovitz also reminds us that branding is key to success when he says - UR the UE (You Are the User Experience.) What he means is that in the end of the day, your organization is no more nor less than how "Mary" describes it to her friend.

So here goes Chris. (Drum roll please.)

Successful branding is about becoming a better organization every day. It's about being more honest, more smart (OK, smarter :) ), more helpful and more fun to interact with so that clients, customers, employees, volunteers, donors, bloggers, etc. will want come back for more!

This has me thinking. Any good (new media) marketer will tell you that content is king but aesthetics are important as well. This is something that Andy Goodman has been trying to tell us for a LONG time.

Still, it's amazing how many fugly nonprofit websites are out here.

You get such a short time to impress people online, why not make the most of that impression?

Her first show features Jonathon Colman, who I'm sure is already missed by The Nature Conservancy, and Carie Lewis from the Humane Society talking about how nonprofits are using social media. Check it out!

Podcasting is a great way to showcase your mission. Not sure what a podcast is? Watch this video from the creative geniuses at Common Craft. Learn more about this underutilized yet high-power medium from social media guru Chris Penn. And check out Britt Bravo'sBig Vision Podcast.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

This is the second time this month that I've gotten blammed (spammed via my blog). Someone looking for a free medium to promote their stuff, writes an irrelevant comment or in this case simply pastes a press release into a blog post.

News alert! Spamming via blogs is one of the worst things you can do because most bloggers are influencers, which means we're just as likely to share bad vs. good news others.

Do me and all the bloggers out here a favor. Show some respect. If you want to use my blog as a mechanism for promoting your stuff.

1) email me first to see if I'm interested in what you have to sell2) leave your name!3) be genuinely interested in my work